Remote Work Tools Your Firm Actually Needs
This week, we’re providing a list of the best remote work tools in five categories. While we’ll recommend the option we prefer in each category, you don’t have to choose the one we use.
For each section, there is a myriad of tools available for you. What matters is choosing the tool that works best for you and your team. A tool no one uses has no value. But, a tool you’re utilizing to only 20% of its potential and the team likes to use is better than one your team won’t ever use.
NOTE: All choices listed are cloud software options. When you work remotely, you only work in the cloud. No need to buy on-premise solutions.
Synchronous Communications
Phone calls (you know… with your phone?)
Our Recommendation: Zoom
Zoom is the clear winner. This is one of the remote work tools you’ve likely heard a ton about since the beginning of COVID-19 quarantine. Being a software company, we’ve used all of the listed tools and none of them have the ease of use Zoom does. You don’t know how many hours of our lives we’ve spent explaining to people how to download the software to join the meeting. Zoom is the clear winner for making it easy to get people in the meeting and ready to roll. There is a reason why Zoom’s Market Cap just passed Uber’s on the stock exchange.
Asynchronous Communications
Texting (another tricky phone-dominant option)
Our Recommendation: It depends on your software stack.
If your team uses Microsoft365 you may want to stay in the suite of Microsoft Products. Similarly, if your team uses GSuite, then you might want to stay with Google’s Product. But, if you’re looking for something outside of those two and you’re ok with potentially paying for the users, we use Slack and love it. Slack is extremely easy to use and it’s fun!
Project Management
Our Recommendation: Jetpack Workflow
It’s our blog afterall! We wouldn’t be writing this guide if we didn’t think we solved this pain point the best. If you and your firm are looking for a single source of truth for all ongoing projects, then look no further than Jetpack Workflow. You can get amazing transparency over your workflow and ensure nothing falls through the cracks ever again.
Start your free 14 day trial of Jetpack Workflow today!
Document Management
- Google Docs
- Dropbox
- Sharefile
- Sync
- Box
- GoFileRoom
- Jetpack Workflow (we offer unlimited document storage!)
- One Drive
Our Recommendation: It depends on your software stack.
We use Google Docs in-house because we are a G Suite Company. We absolutely love Google docs by Microsoft and have also made some great strides in the 365 cloud offering. One Drive is a great alternative for the companies that work in Microsoft. For those of you who are not Google or Microsoft shops, you can’t go wrong with Jetpack Workflow or Dropbox. Jetpack Workflow because it comes with your subscription and Dropbox because it’s the one that has permeated the minds of your clients more than any other. Chances are your clients have a dropbox account and know how to use it. This makes it a ton easier to get documents from them when you need it!
CRMs
Our Recommendation: It depends on the mission and size of your firm.
If you’re a relatively small firm whose mission it is to scale and become huge – definitely go with Hubspot. We use Hubspot internally because that’s who we are. If you’re a huge firm already then you can’t go wrong with Salesforce (other than the price!). Salesforce is the largest game in town for a reason, just make sure you have the resources to develop to doing Salesforce right! If you’re a small firm that’s more sales focused but not looking to become huge, try out Pipedrive. Pipedrive is relatively cheap ($10 per user per month) and allows for a great sales funnel.
Which remote work tools are your favorites? Which essential tools did we miss? Share with us on social.
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